Grow With In-App Purchases

3 – Money Demon (2)

“We all know you got lucky. I was just curious when you might get lucky next.”

“…We’ll see when it happens.”

There used to be many mercenaries who threatened me over this issue.

It was a mistake I made when I didn’t know the mercenary world well.

I thought I just had to find a lot of monsters and earn lots of money.

I didn’t know the merc bastards would want to split open my belly like a golden goose even if it killed me to learn my secret.

‘Abilities are useless if you can’t protect them.’

If there’s one thing I did right in the past, it was stubbornly claiming it was just ‘luck’ even when knives were pressed to my throat.

I’ve been buried in the ground before because of guys who didn’t believe me, but somehow I managed to survive through skills and help from items, and because I persisted in calling it luck to the end, I’m now known as the lucky guy among mercenaries.

‘If I didn’t have revival stones, who knows what would’ve happened.’

Being able to come back to life even after dying.

Revival stones were an annoying but useful function in-game, restoring characters when you accidentally killed them while raising them, but now that I’m inside the game they’ve become tremendous lifesavers.

Just because a 16 year old boy awakened memories of his past life and could use the ‘Shop’ ability didn’t mean he could properly endure mercenary activities.

‘One was from an attendance reward. One I miraculously got from a draw. Never came out again no matter how much I rolled after.’

I’ve already used up the only 2 revival stones I had.

If I die now, I’m dead for real.

What if revival stones were something I couldn’t use, something exclusive to characters?

I should be grateful I could use them instead of complaining about items I can’t use as a character-exclusive, it seems.

‘Come to think of it, being able to easily buy high quality scrolls through microtransactions is quite an amazing ability.’

I’m 30 years old now, so that was about 14 years ago?

After about 10 years as a mercenary, I’d gained enough know-how to carry out mercenary life stably.

Of course, since I had to go kill monsters, I mean, make microtransactions in order to earn money, it was impossible to live completely risk-free.

But after building up basic funds and drawing useful items for me through microtransactions, I could live as a mercenary much more safely.

‘Thanks to that I got called a madman who treats contaminated zones near his home like nothing, at the cost of his life.’

When a package comes out that I’ll die if I don’t buy, how could I not buy it?

I can never hold back.

That’s how I went crazy for monsters, no, microtransactions, to earn money and work as a mercenary.

Why don’t I just earn money here and buy monster byproducts that others obtained?

I wish I could do that too. If it wasn’t for this damn social status.

Mercenaries can sell monster byproducts through the ‘Mercenary Guild’ but they can’t purchase them.

In the first place, only nobles were allowed to sell, purchase, and process anything related to monsters.

‘If the interests of commoners who wanted a share of the monsters they hunted and nobles who didn’t want to deal with monsters escaping the contamination zones didn’t align, mercenaries wouldn’t go around hunting monsters either.’

Mercenaries who professionally hunt monsters appeared to cater to the conveniences of nobles.

However, nobles drew a clear line.

While selling was allowed, purchasing was not. In other words, things made from monster byproducts had to be used for humanity, for the nobles – that was their claim.

“This is your last job before retirement, right? Don’t you want one big haul before you go too? It’s mutually beneficial. Our boys aren’t the type to miss their mark. No matter what monster shows up, they can take it out so don’t worry and just point the way when you feel it, got it?”

The mercenary captain gave me a greasy wink as he signaled to me.

After getting a taste of one Cobalt, he seemed to have gotten quite greedy.

He wouldn’t pry about my ability I pass off as luck, but the implication was clear that I should give them intel on the monsters and not hesitate.

The mercenary captain needed money, and I was also in urgent need of money at the moment, so our goals aligned if we aimed to hunt a lot of monsters.

⁘ ⁘ ⁘

Everyone’s hush hush about it, but people believe I have the ability to track monsters.

And that conjecture is true.

I have a way to locate monsters.

[Monster Tracking Scroll (1 use)]

When raising a character, their growth stats vary depending on how many monsters they face.

Of course there’s the risk of your character dying if you take on too much, but monster tracking scrolls were a pretty commonly obtained single use item when you did item draws.

And since they aren’t character-exclusive items, I could use this item too.

‘Although there’s randomness, so sometimes you end up with something like a Cobalt when you use it.’

No matter what item you get with microtransactions, they slap on quite the brutal baseline price.

When it turns out to be a Cobalt like now, it was definitely a loss.

‘Next time I use it, it’s gotta be something more valuable…’

But randomness means it doesn’t go how you want – I might get another Cobalt next time, or a monster I can’t even hunt at all, or it might track a monster super far away and cause people tremendous hardship.

‘The mercenaries think I’m a lucky guy, but that’s not the case at all. I’m a damn unlucky bastard.’

If I was lucky, I would’ve gotten revival stones already.

I habitually opened the microtransaction window and sighed deeply at the dwindling time left for the special deal upon seeing the price.

‘I definitely have to buy that one…’

Why do you think it’s called a special deal?

Because it’s practically free, an insane bargain.

What’s more, this special deal package included a whopping ‘Revival Stones (x3)’.

‘3 revival stones? I have to buy it no matter what. Even if I have to overextend myself!’

Not just one, not two, but three!!!

Aren’t 3 extra lives nothing to bark at?

The special deal package was a formidable $89,000 because of that, but it was absolutely worth it.

‘To think this would come up after I spent all the money I’d saved up for retirement.’

My 14th year as a mercenary.

I’m thirty now.

It was getting to the age I’d feel burdened operating without revival stones.

So I was planning to retire and head to where the academy is to sell the items I’d collected so far.

Just in case I could obtain another exclusive item, I’d spent all the money I’d saved up until now.

‘Freaking bastard…!’

The moment I felt triumphant after spending all that money and getting pretty decent results.

Suddenly the microtransaction shop got updated, and a special event came up with special deal packages.

That’s why I postponed my retirement and took on this job.

I have to make $89,000 from this job today.

“This way.”

“What is it? A monster? Do you feel it?”

“…Yeah.”

The mercenary captain also hoped we’d hunt monsters even if we had to overextend ourselves. I had no reason to object.

After spending an appropriate amount of time searching for monsters, I used the scroll.

The scroll pointed northeast, so I led the mercenary group in that direction.

“Feels farther than I thought?”

“Cough! Isn’t it too close to the contamination zone?”

“If it’s hard to breathe, change your mask, newbie.”

As the travel time grew longer, the mercenary captain told the grumbling mercenaries not to complain and warned them.

How great of a benefit was it that we didn’t have to wander blindly to hunt monsters?

The mercenary captain was on pins and needles, concerned I might take offense at their conversation.

“Gambling?”

“Huh? How’d you know?”

Hearing the little mutter nearby, the newbie mercenary who’d been tagging along beside me quickly butted in.

“I heard the captain got half his retirement fund ripped off from gambling last time. So he’s struggling now tryna fill it back up before his wife finds out. Even if you told him to split his crotch open now, he’d go the distance for money, right?”

“I thought he was getting too greedy.”

“But he’s in a great mood to be on a job with you. I heard if you take a job with the money demon, you’ll be sitting on a pile of cash.”

The earnings of mercenaries working with me increase tremendously depending on how much I invest.

“I made up my mind coming here too, so by the time we finish I’m sure we’ll have covered at least the half he lost gambling.”

“Whoa…That’s freaking awesome. So cool.”

Hearing my words, the newbie mercenary bounced around excitedly.

Must be because he’s young. Good stamina.

“There are tracks here!”

How long did we track and follow the direction the scroll pointed?

As if to indicate we’d come close to the contamination zone, a pleasant yet unpleasant smell came with traces of the monster.

“Bastard marked this as his territory with a huge dump.”

Seeing the monster’s feces, the mercenary captain made a sneering smile.

The stench was foul, but seeing this much excrement meant the thing that left it must be quite big.

“It’s still warm! Looks like it took a nice big dump here then went back out hunting?”

“So it must be nearby?”

“Yeah. Everyone be vigilant and check your surroundings well. Watch for ambushes!”

Monsters aren’t stupid.

They’ve lived their whole lives ‘hunting’.

And their prey included ‘humans’.

From now on, the mercenary party had to be aware that they might become the hunted rather than the hunters.

They couldn’t know when fangs might suddenly come flying out of nowhere and rip into their throats.

Everyone checked their equipment again and gripped their weapons.

But unlike the mercenaries who were on high alert as they scanned their surroundings, I was at ease.

‘The line is showing me where the monster is.’

The monster tracking scroll I used guided the way with a white thread until we encountered the monster.

Thanks to that, I didn’t need to be vigilant and on guard like them as I looked around.

I followed the trail, tense like the mercenary party.

And finally, we could confront the monster once more.

“It’s got a tremendous build.”

“Woah…Almost reaches my shoulders?”

Despite them all being big mercenaries, the monster we found was a four-legged, animal-type monster, yet its head still reached about shoulder height despite its tremendous size.

“Looks kinda like a rhino. Anyone know what that is?”

“???”

“First time seeing it.”

“Can’t we just take it down simply?”

“Newbie, look at that size. It’s definitely tough.”

“…It’s a Peronpara monster.”

As the mercenaries looked at each other and shook their heads in response to the captain’s question, I reluctantly opened my mouth since no one seemed to know.

“Peron what?”

“Peronpara. It resembles a rhino, but it uses that horn for its abilities.”

“F*ck, abilities?”

Hearing the word abilities, the mercenaries’ faces twisted.